UN Office of the Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide and the International Criminal Court Prosecutor: Investigate the Possibility that Israel is Committing the Crime of Genocide Against the Palestinian People

Last Thursday, the UK Prime Minister Theresa May was doling out compliment after another to the Israeli delegation attending the event to mark the one hundredth anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, a move that displaced Palestinians from their own lands and made way for European Jews to occupy Arab lands. Speaking at a dinner function, May said that Britain is ‘proud of our pioneering role in the creation of the state of Israel’ adding that she was proud ‘of the relationship we have built with Israel.’

… More than 3,500 civilians had lost their lives, a sizeable portion of whom were women and children. Some 17,000 Gazans were injured and more than 100,000 left homeless. Michael Ratner of the Centre for Constitutional Rights aptly termed Israel’s planned ethnic cleansing and massacres of Palestinians “incremental genocide.” And their retribution for the crime against them? The perpetrators of the genocide get felicitated at a dinner reception hosted by no less than the UK prime minister in recognition of their fine efforts, while their victims slide into anonymity.

Founded upon the racist Zionism ideology, Israel has claimed Palestine as a home to world Jewry, while systematically destroying and imprisoning the Palestinian nation. This process is identified by Israeli historian Ilan Pappe, as the ‘incremental genocide’ of the Palestinians, which has never ceased since 1947-1948.

“What’s happening in Myanmar is in many ways a painful reminder of what’s been unfolding in Palestine over seven decades. Huge mass evacuation and displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and expropriation of their land since the creation of Israel in 1948. Both peoples, Rohingya and Palestinians, have been repeatedly persecuted, displaced and denied citizenship… Suu Kyi is certainly neglecting her moral responsibility as a former human rights leader, to say the least. If she gets away with it, as many believe she will, her inaction would only encourage states such as Israel, and its most extreme government to escalate persecution against the Palestinians.”

Thanks to many activists and intellectuals, the similarities between the Native and Palestinian struggles are now being articulated in earnest. The genocide of the Native Americans, similar to the ongoing destruction of the Palestinian nation, is one of the lowest points of human morality. It is particularly disheartening that there are yet to be serious attempts at addressing this grave injustice.

The danger of impunity which is championed by the government/army, society and religious institutions, is not merely the lack of legal accountability, but the fact that it is the very foundation of most violent crimes against humanity, including genocide. This impunity began seven decades ago and it will not end without international intervention, with concerted efforts to hold Israel accountable in order to bring the agony of Palestinians to a halt.

“This is the current situation that Abbas faces. Abbas’ current stance regarding the current Intifada and his attempt to badly utilise it as a means to resume talks with Israel harkens to the way the first Intifada was utilised to reap the disastrous Oslo Accords, for which the Palestinians are still paying a bitter price. It is clear that the Palestinian [National] Authority is resolute when it comes to its security coordination with Israel, even if the Occupation has committed genocide and war crimes against the Palestinians.”

It is no surprise that Palestinians find numerous similarities between South Africa’s apartheid regime and Israel’s unmistakable apartheid practices. But the Myanmarese-Israeli connection is rarely discussed. In Tablet magazine, Joe Freeman, wrote the article: ‘In Israel’s earliest days, the place its leaders felt compelled to visit was Burma.’

High-profile Israeli visitors, who began making their pilgrimage to Myanmar decades ago, included Shimon Peres, Moshe Dayan, Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, David Ben-Gurion and Golda Meir. At the time, the Myanmarese government was convinced that “Israel was the quintessential example of the egalitarian social and economic order that he wished to establish”.

The truth, however, lies in how both countries treated, and continue to treat, their minorities. Following the ethnic cleansing of the original inhabitants of Palestine, Israel immediately went on to fashion an alternative and particularly biased narrative about how it was established, and to deny Palestinians any historical link to their homeland. The Myanmarese did just that too…

The opening up of Myanmarese politics in recent years spelled the doom for the Rohingya, because the burgeoning ‘freedom of speech’ within the region empowered Buddhist nationalist factions that promoted genocide against the defenceless Rohingya. This incitement resulted in the killing of hundreds, the burning of entire villages and the ‘ethnic cleansing’ of the Rohingya Muslims in jungles and refugee camps. Hundreds perished at sea as they tried to seek salvation in countries that had no sympathy for poor, stateless people.

TAKE ACTION now and write a letter to the UN Office of the Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide and the International Criminal Court Prosecutor. Make sure to post a copy of the letter in our comments as well, so we can publish it.